HITLER IS DEAD . APRIL 30, 1945

Entrance to modern flats over former Reichs Chancellory where Hitler died © Erin Faith Allen

As if dragged by some kind of external force, I head to the brownish flats that rise along Wilhelmstrasse in the heart of Berlin.

I stand in the garden, pace through the parking lot, walk back and forth through the fluorescent-lit entrance that beckons me like a vortex into historical hell. 

I don’t know what I expect or why I do it, but I’ve done it every time I’ve visited Berlin, and usually more than once.

It was here that the Reich Chancellery once proudly stood - before it was smashed to bits by the Allies, anyway.

The last days of Berlin’s Nazi heyday were horrible for the women enduring rampant assaults by the Red Army, and horrible for the men fighting in the streets; these were mostly old men and young boys. 

All the other men were out on other fronts. Or dead. 

Germany lost around five million men in this war. 

Here’s what the scene was, at the site of this building and its parking lot, on April 30th of 1945: 

Somewhere just over there smoked the burning corpses of one Herr Hitler and his new wife, Eva. The exact details of their deaths vary from source to source. 

As the most widely accepted story goes, they committed suicide right underneath where my feet stand - underground, in the sprawling Führerbunker complex - with a gun and some cyanide. 

In accordance with Hitler’s wishes, their bodies were brought up here to the garden, doused with gasoline, and then lit on fire.

Most people believe this story, but there are plenty who do not. I don’t really get stuck on opinion. 

It doesn’t matter to me how Hitler died or when, because my interest - and my heart - sits with the dozens of millions who died because of 'his struggle', and the dozens of millions who suffered.

And all of those who still do.

Perhaps, at the time, it could have brought peace to those still living to know precisely how the man met his end and when. But it wouldn’t have changed a thing.

.

What is it like to stand in proximity to where Hitler died? 

It’s strangely flat. Surreal. 

The only thing here, now, is life going on. People stop and read the unassuming sign, the one with the map of the bunker complex and the details of those final days when Berlin was on fire. 

Occasionally, tourist groups pass through, gawking and squinting - heads turning left, right, up, down, just like mine - and posing for pictures in the parking lot. 

Up there, to the left, I hear the clink of dishes. 

Over there, above the children’s sandpit, the sound of classical music spills out of the open window. I feel it pouring, then bouncing off the walls of what used to be. 

People come and go through the fluorescent-lit entry. Cars move by on the quiet street parallel to the parking lot dotted with cars. 

Daylight drops off. 

It is dark now.

Life goes on.

.

Except, of course, for the estimated sixty million or more extinguished lives of World War II. 

That’s a lot of lives for that one burned-up body with a petite little mustache to be responsible for. 

And let us not forget the other lives.

Because the suffering didn’t stop when the war ended. Ask any number of the offspring of the people who survived. 

Many, if not most - if not all - were haunted by what they endured, witnessed, and experienced, no matter if they were a soldier, civilian, man, woman, prisoner, slave laborer, or small child. 

Haunted. 

And that sort of thing is handed right on down the family line.

All over the world. 

And so, I cannot help but wonder if it really makes a difference how Hitler died.

All photos and article © Erin Faith Allen

Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe © Erin Faith Allen